The Strand

The Khartanis-Ancylon Bridge (known informally as The Strand) is an unstable wormhole nominally linking the Khartanis system, on the fringes of Federation space, with the Sigma Ancylon system in Sector Z8 (The Verge) at the edge of the Milky Way galaxy.

Astronomical Data

The Strand connects two points in the Milky Way galaxy that are normally 13,000 light years apart, and allows for instantaneous travel over a distance that would normally take even the fastest ship four years to cover at maximum warp.

At the relatively-stable Khartanis terminus, the wormhole's aperture becomes visible on a fairly regular cycle – appearing once every seven to ten days, and remaining open for about an hour before disappearing. The nominal Ancylon terminus actually fluctuates unpredictably between various points in spacetime but will generally appear in the Sigma Ancylon system once a month, remaining open for only ten to fifteen minutes before disappearing.

The Strand The Khartanis-Ancylon Bridge, also known as The Strand.

A key part of Starfleet's mission in The Verge is to stabilize the Ancylon terminus to allow for safe passage through the wormhole. By harnessing the immense power of the X-ray binary Sigma Ancylon AB, the local terminus is polarized and captured, able to be held in place for about an hour – synchronizing with the cycle of the Khartanis terminus and allowing ships to cross safely.

History

The Strand was first encountered in 2352 by the civilian merchant freighter Silver Cormorant, which was drawn in and stranded at the edge of the galaxy by the unanticipated opening of the aperture. After barely surviving a perilous twenty-five-year journey home, Starfleet was made aware of the wormhole's existence and began studying it in earnest.

In 2383, Fleet Task Group 85 was assembled and deployed through the wormhole to The Verge in order to establish Starbase Horizon, a new Federation outpost whose mission was to act as both an anchor station to stabilize the wormhole, as well as a staging point for future missions to breach the edge of the galaxy.